India

Liquidity crunch and loan recovery will hamper Nepali financial inastitutions beginning next month. Vibor Development Bank and People's Finance went into serious liquidity crunch. However, this is not the first instance of liquidity crunch in the country. Experts said the liquidity crisis was a result of quick profit motive rather than going for much reliable investments. Radhesh Pant, Chief Executive Officer of Kumari Bank in Nepal said that the situation had arrived mainly because of two reasons -- the political instability and lack of proper monitoring over the financial institutions. "The political instability causes an impasse at the policy making level, which discourages investment. And also, there are too many players in the banking sector right now and a proper monitoring system is lacking," according to Pant. "We have 28 commercial banks, we have 60-65 development banks, more than 70 financial institutions," Pant said. "The government and the political parties should focus on the economy of the country while fixing their priorities for the next 5-10 years on how to develop Nepal. For instance, a focus on hydropower with strong strategy, which is bought in by all the parties so that in future, even when the government's changes, same objectives, and strategies are worked on," Pant said. Likewise, he also said that the the other basic reason behind the crunch was the decelerating growth in the remittances. The bankers and financial institutions have also blamed the government for its failure to promulgate the national budget on time and its lack of spending ability. The full story is available at xinhuanet.

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4,987 officers would be recruited for associate banks of the lender.

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Power Finance Corporation is actively seeking a role in the booming banking sector of India. It is in the process of appointing a consultant to guide the company through the entire process.

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The Bank of Ceylon is to spread globally first into the 27 member European Union, then North America, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore.

Bank of Ceylon's March 2011 quarter net profit shot up 163.1 percent to almost 2.2 billion rupees from a year ago.

 Sri Lanka's National Development Bank group's net profit for the first quarter doubled to 605 million rupees from a year ago.